


to sleep, to bleed

by Enby_Tiefling



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Demonic Possession, Drabble, F/M, Gen, Gore, Hurt No Comfort, Post-Episode: c01e69 "Passed Through Fire", Resurrection, Suicidal Ideation, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, came back wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 09:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21097370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enby_Tiefling/pseuds/Enby_Tiefling
Summary: Percy's not right when he comes back. Vax sees it. No one else wants to.





	to sleep, to bleed

Percival is different, after. 

There's cruelty in him that he doesn't always manage to suppress, and an alien twist to his movement, and sometimes he stares at nothing with a hollow expression and sometimes he rages and sometimes he breaks things and sometimes they hear violent sobbing from his workshop and sometimes sometimes sometimes

There are pieces of him missing, consumed, left broken and scattered in him like shrapnel. He builds awful things, metal death traps that he wants so badly to backfire on him as he tinkers. The cough never leaves. He's cold to the touch. He fantasizes about their throats and the way their viscera would slide between his fingers, how their blood might finally bring colour back to the cold-grey-black that's consumed him. He wants to tear Pike limb from limb with strength that's not his own and see if she bleeds red or gold. He wants to bring Ripley back and run her down like a predator and carve his scars back into her. He wants Keyleth to burn him alive.

He falls into bed with Vex like breathing, if breathing was still easy for him now. The brush of her hands across his skin burns, makes every dulled nerve ending sing with glorious _life_ that he's been missing for what feels like forever. He kisses her like he wants to devour her, wants to draw her in and constrict, meld her into him to keep her warmth and light for himself - and she kisses him like a possession, like a treasure, like something worth savouring. Kneeling before her feels like supplication without surrender, his ego and adoration safe in the knowledge that he could surge to his feet and lay claim to her if he wanted to - and he doesn't, he thrives when he's kept by her, feels alive and warm and content at her beck and call. She holds back the monochromatic cold. When she doesn't - can't - she arches into his clawed touch and melts into the greedy press of his mouth to her pulse. One day he'll eat her whole.

Vax sees it. Of course he does. He watches, knows that something's wrong but can't pinpoint it, and in the meantime his sister seems so happy, he can't chance ruining this without proof. Still, he sees the shadows wrapping around Percy's throat, hears the mirror shatter when he punches his own reflection, feels the predatory tension in the air when he can't take his eyes off of Pike or Keyleth. There's something wrong with Percival, something twisted and broken that no one else wants to notice. Vax will do anything to protect his family.

He corners Percy in the workshop. Percy barely reacts, just tilts his head a few degrees too far and blinks behind his crooked glasses.

"If you hurt her..." Vax says with infinite possible endings.

"Please," Percy whispers hoarsely, his voice strangely desperate even as his face is smooth and cold like marble. "You see it. Keep watch."

In a moment of desperate love Vax pulls him closer by the back of the neck, gentle but inexorable, pressing their foreheads together. Percy's breath puffs icy and sulphurous against his skin, his eyes still locked with Vax's, but his shoulders slump and curl into something exhausted but blessedly human. One of his shaking hands finds Vax's side, resting delicately. He can feel the chill through his armour.

"You're still ours," Vax says, not entirely sure what he's saying until it trips out of his mouth. "No matter what. You, Percival. Always you."

Percy pulls back, cold and unreadable again. But there's a fracture in his calcified chest, and he joins them for dinner that evening. He is silent, watching them with eerily pale eyes, but he is there.


End file.
